“The gallantry of the Avon’s officers and crew cannot for a moment be questioned; but the gunnery of the latter appears to have been not one whit better than, to the discredit of the British navy, had frequently before been displayed in combats of this kind. Nor, judging from the specimen given by the Castilian, is it likely that she would have performed any better.”
Roosevelt figures that the Wasp used twelve guns firing 327 pounds of metal to the Avon’s eleven throwing 280 pounds. The crews are set down at 160 to 117 and the relative force at fourteen to eleven in favor of the Yankees, the loss of men being as forty-two to three. Then he adds:
“It is self-evident that in the case of this action the odds, fourteen to eleven, are neither enough to account for the loss inflicted, being as fourteen to one, nor for the rapidity with which, during a night encounter, the Avon was placed in a sinking condition.”
After the night battle the Wasp ran with a free sheet and a favoring current away to the south and west. A merchantman was captured on the 12th, and another on the 14th. On the 21st she took the Atalanta, of eight guns, that had been a Baltimore privateer named Siro—“a beautiful brig of two hundred and fifty-three tons, coppered to the bends and copper fastened, and has a very valuable cargo on board, consisting of brandy, wines, cambrics, etc.” So wrote one of the Wasp’s officers. The Atalanta was manned and placed under the command of Midshipman David Geisinger. All the crew wrote letters to their friends, and Captain Blakeley sent in her his official report of the battle with the Avon. Then the Atalanta sailed for home, reaching Savannah on November 4, 1814, and the letters she carried were the last ever received from any member of the crew of the Wasp.
Yet a brief glimpse of her subsequent career was found in the log of the Swedish bark Adonis. As the reader will recall, the gallant crew of the Essex had for the most part arrived in New York under parole on the Essex Junior. There were two, however, Lieutenant Stephen Decatur McKnight and Master’s-Mate Lyman, who were landed at Rio Janeiro by the Phœbe, and these started for home on the Swedish bark Adonis, but they did not arrive, and when the time of their absence grew long, their friends made inquiry. The Adonis had arrived, though without publicly reporting anything about her passengers, but when her log was searched the following entry was found:
“Oct. 9th. In lat 18° 35′ N., long. 30° 10′ W., sea account, at 8 o’clock in the morning, discovered a strange sail giving chase to us, and fired several guns; she gaining very fast. At half-past 10 o’clock hove to, and was boarded by an officer dressed in an English doctor’s uniform, the vessel also hoisted an English ensign. The officer proceeded to examine my ship’s papers, &c., &c., likewise the letter bags, and took from one of them a letter to the victualling office, London. Finding I had two American officers as passengers, he immediately left the ship, and went on board the sloop-of-war; he shortly after returned, took the American gentlemen with him, and went a second time on board the sloop. In about half an hour, he returned again with Messrs. McKnight and Lyman, and they informed me that the vessel was the United States sloop-of-war, the Wasp, commanded by Captain Bleaky, or Blake, last from France, where she had refitted; had lately sunk the Reindeer, English sloop of war, and another vessel which sunk without their being able to save a single person, or learn the vessel’s name—that Messrs. McKnight and Lyman had now determined to leave me, and go on board the Wasp—paid me their passage in dollars, at 5s. 9d., and having taken their luggage on board the Wasp, they made sail to the southward. Shortly after they had left, I found that Lieutenant McKnight had left his writing-desk behind; and I immediately made signal for the Wasp to return, and stood toward her; they, observing my signals, stood back, came alongside, and sent their boat on board for the writing-desk; after which they sent me a log line, and some other presents, and made all sail in a direction for the line; and I have reason to suppose for the convoy that passed on Thursday previous.”
The above is quoted by Cooper. It locates the Wasp say two hundred miles about northwest of the Cape de Verde Islands. Cooper adds:
“There is a rumor that an English frigate went into Cadiz, much crippled and with a very severe loss of men, about this time, and that she reported her injuries to have been received in an engagement with a heavy American corvette, the latter disappearing so suddenly in the night, that it was thought she had sunk.
“There is only one other rumor in reference to this ship that has any appearance of probability. There is little doubt that Captain Blakeley intended to run down toward the Spanish Main, and to pass through the West Indies, in order to go into a southern port according to his orders. It is said that two English frigates chased an American sloop-of-war, off the southern coast, about the time the Wasp ought to have arrived, and that the three ships were struck with a heavy squall, in which the sloop-of-war suddenly disappeared. There is nothing surprising in a vessel of that size being capsized in a squall, especially when carrying sail hard to escape enemies.
“She was a good ship, as well manned and as ably commanded as any vessel in our little navy; and it may be doubted if there was at that time any foreign sloop-of-war of her size and strength that could have stood against her in fair fight.”